10 WordPress SEO Tips to Improve Search Engine Ranking

Are you wondering how to optimize your WordPress SEO? If you do, you have come to the right place.

WordPress SEO optimization starts from the time when you first install WordPress for the first time. As WordPress is open source the most used content management system out there, there are plenty of guides you will find in SEO optimization for WordPress.

SEO, in general, evolves almost every six months. Google, a dominant force in online search engine, loves to tweak their searching algorithm. You might have heard about the famous Panda and Penguin releases. That’s why, today, we will list the best WordPress SEO topics to improve search engine optimization. It doesn’t matter which search engine you are trying to rank for. It can be Yahoo, Duckduckgo or Bing; we got you covered.

Our previous blog gave you an useful overview of 10 best WordPress SEO plugins and tools to help your website have higher ranking on Google. In this article, you will have chance to take note some amazing WordPress SEO tips to make better SEO campaign for your site.

The list of WordPress SEO tips below will also help anyone who is starting a website and want to have a strong SEO foundation. So, without any delay, let’s get started.

1. Permalinks

The first thing that you need to do once you set up your website is to set proper permalinks. Permalinks are the URL associated with your website’s pages and posts. They present a defined structure and hence holds importance when it comes to search engine optimization.

To set permalinks on your WordPress website, you need to go to “Settings” and then “permalinks.” The choice of which permalink depends completely on your preferences. However, we would always recommend using “/%postname%/” as the permalink structure. Both users and search engine readily recognize this permalink structure.

Example: www.mywebsite.com/?p=123 will be changed to www.mywebsite.com/hello-world.

2. Use SEO plugins

SEO plugins are handy when it comes to WordPress. You can install any of the available SEO plugins in the market. However, we recommend using Yoast SEO plugin. The SEO plugin will optimize your WordPress and ensure that you do proper on-page SEO as well. The plugins are also useful if you choose drag and drop website builder to build your website. So, pick one according to your choice and get started.

3. Create Sitemap

Sitemaps list all the pages or posts on your website. They are useful in optimizing your site, especially when Google uses it to parse your website and index them appropriately. You can create sitemaps using Yoast SEO plugin. You can also opt to use Google XML Sitemaps.

4. SEO themes

Not all WordPress themes are created equally. Some different in features, some in functionality, and some in the code quality. On-page SEO is heavily dependent on the theme you are using. It also impacts off-page SEO. And, that’s why you should always pick up themes that are entirely SEO optimized. You can find SEO themes on marketplaces easily. We also advise you to buy paid ideas rather than the free ones.

A good theme if picked right will give you quality code and speed. Speed is also essential as it will help your website rank higher on Google. A good theme follows the latest SEO practices and ensures that Google bots will have no issue when crawling the website.

5. Google Analytics

Installing Google analytics on your website can help you further optimize your WordPress website. At first, it will help you to track the website traffic. On top of that, the plugin will also help you perform useful actions such as finding 404 pages, stopping referral spam, understanding visitor behavior and so on.

6. Media optimization

Any website you visit has a lot of media on it. It can be images or videos. However, these media if left unoptimized can break your website SEO efforts. Yes, you read it right. They not only have to be optimized correctly concerning size and quality but also regarding alt-text. You should also choose an easy file name so that it becomes easier for search engine bots. In short, you need to add context to your media. It can be caption, title, description or alt-text. Once you do it correctly, you will start getting great search engine results.

7. Use “NoFollow” properly

Not all links going out of your website are useful or trustworthy. To ensure that Google values your website, you should simply use rel=”nofollow” to the all outgoing links. To do so, you can use nofollow plugin to get the desired result.

If you feel that a link needs a follow, then you can simply override the link by adding rel=”dofollow.” This way you can manage your outbound links and ensure your website quality of link referral is maintained. Also, Google is strict in this regard. They always ask websites to link to similar websites.

8. Optimize your site speed

Site speed plays a vital role in determining the website SEO. If your website is slow, it won’t get excellent result in SEO. That’s why you should always be wary of the website loading time. For starters, try to load your website below three seconds. Anything above it will not only hamper your website SEO score but also result in bad conversion rate. You can also use WordPress cache plugins such as W3 Total Cache to make your website faster. Of Course, there are other ways to speed up your website. You can follow any guide on the internet to make your website fast.

9. Writing high-quality SEO content

Nothing beats good content. Google loves it, and so does other search engines. The best way to approach writing high-quality content that can rank is first to find keywords. Once done, try to write unique content on topics that are related to keywords. While writing, also makes sure that your content is unique and shareable. It should also be useful for the readers.

10. Get proper hosting

To ensure that other optimizations don’t go waste, you need to make sure that your hosting is good. None of the SEO techniques will work if your hosting provides lousy hosting. It should help load the website fast enough and also ensure that stays up all the time.

WordPress SEO is an important topic. We hope that you learned something from the article. If you did, comment below and share your thoughts.